Many Christians get confused by the distinction of the Old and New Covenants when we use the Old Testament to teach New Covenant truth. However, Jesus said “the Scriptures cannot be broken” (see John 10:35). In fact, what we call the Old Testament is the only Bible that the first century church had, and every place in the New Testament that it refers to in the Scriptures is what we call the Old Testament.
The basic principle is that the Old Covenant is the law, and the New Covenant is grace and righteousness that we attain by faith in the atonement of the cross of Jesus. You can see the New Covenant in the Old Testament, and some, like King David saw it so clearly they lived in it a thousand years before it was established. He had faith looking into the future like we do looking back on the cross. Likewise, some people read the New Testament with an Old Covenant heart and it is law to them, and they try to live under the law long after the New Covenant has come. Do we have the law or grace and truth in our hearts?
Likewise, there are promises that the Lord gave to Israel that apply to the New Covenant “holy nation,” but also some were specifically for the Jewish people who were sons of Abraham according to the flesh. It is really not hard to distinguish them, but many do blur the distinctions. This has led to them not being able to perceive a key factor in understanding the times—the place and purpose of Israel.
There are also promises given specifically to Israel and do not apply to other nations, and then there are some that apply to all nations, which are explained in the prophets. We need to understand these principles to have a basic understanding of God’s dealings with the nations today. We’ll just look at a few to get the point.
"Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom He has chosen for His own
inheritance" (Psalm 33:12).
This is obviously speaking of Israel because this is the only nation that He calls His “inheritance” except for the holy nation, the church. However, the next two are given to any nation:
"Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people" (Proverbs 14:34).
This is obviously given to any nation.
“At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to uproot, to pull down,
or to destroy it;
if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I
planned to bring on it.
"Or at another moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to build up or to
plant it;
if it does evil in My sight by not obeying My voice, then I will think better of the good with which I had
promised to bless it” (Jeremiah 18:7-11).
As we see a number of times in Scripture, at times the Lord sent His prophets to help heathen nations, such as in the case of Jonah. Many of the prophecies in the Old Testament were for the various nations of the earth, not just Israel. In them we see that generally the principles that led to the blessings of God for Israel could be applied to other nations if they sought the Lord and His righteousness, and they too would be blessed.
Israel’s basic purpose was to be an inheritance of the Lord, and as His inheritance it was supposed to be “a nation of priests” to teach all nations the ways of the Lord. Israel had some remarkable successes in doing this at times, such as in the story of the Queen of Sheba coming to investigate what made Israel so blessed. They also had failures as Solomon was an example of this too. This has been our case as the holy nation also. Even so, it seems that the Lord was seeking ways to bless anyone He could, so any principle of blessing could apply to anyone who embraced it even if they were not specifically from the nation He had His covenant with.
The following is just one of these blessings whose application can be seen very clearly in our own time in America:
"For the Lord your God shall bless you as He has promised you, and you will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow; and you will rule over many nations, but they will not rule over you" (Deuteronomy 15:6).
From the time that the United States was founded, we were a blessed nation economically. As we started turning from the Lord, we went quickly from being the world’s biggest lender to the biggest borrower. The U.S. Federal budget is now almost half deficit spending, which means the government is only taking in through taxes and revenues about half of what it is spending. That would be like you spending every month twice what you make. No one could do that for long without going bankrupt, and neither can a nation.
Consider this: The entire amount of debt our nation accumulated from the time of George Washington until George W. Bush was 6.3 trillion dollars. Obama doubled this, adding 6.5 trillion to our debt in just three years and is asking for a lot more. There is not a serious, respected economist in the world who does not think this will ultimately collapse our economy if we do not change our direction soon.
The answer to our economic problems is bigger than just figuring ways to spend less and bring in more income—it is how we have to return to the Lord, and by seeking His righteousness, receive His blessings again. This does not negate using good stewardship, as between a third to a half of the teachings in Scripture on righteousness have to do with stewardship. Even so, the most important thing is to become a nation that seeks the Lord again, seeking to live by His standards of righteousness that will “exalt a nation.”
